· Public charity
The Conservation Fund a Nonprofit Corporation
The conservation fund is in the business of conservation, creating innovative solutions that drive nature-based action for climate protection, sustainable economies and vibrant communities.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 57% of THE CONSERVATION FUND A NONPROFIT CORPORATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 156 grants below total $20,401,512 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $52,790,311 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $32,388,799 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k22 grants · $165k
- $10k–50k78 grants · $1.4M
- $50k–250k44 grants · $4.4M
- $250k+12 grants · $14M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CITY OF ATLANTA | $5,000,000 |
| MAINSPRING CONSERVATION TRUST INC | $2,030,227 |
| LAND TRUST FOR LOUISIANA | $1,055,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF NORTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN | $1,000,000 |
| STATE OF MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES | $987,299 |
| Individual grant recipient | $986,299 |
| CONGAREE LAND TRUST | $810,000 |
| VA DEPT OF WILDLIFE RESOURCES | $714,500 |
| PRESERVATION VIRGINIA | $568,590 |
| STATE OF DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTRO | $500,000 |
| BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT | $500,000 |
| TOWN OF GORHAM | $277,193 |
| COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA PENNSYLVANIA GAME COMMISSION | $221,393 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $216,544 |
| LEECH LAKE BAND OF THE OJIBWE | $200,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $1.6M) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 75% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +60% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
234 repeat relationships — 86 still active in FY2024, 148 since wound down; 66 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7.6M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- LGLONGWOOD GARDENS INC2× · 2023–2024 · $10M · revenue +68%
- AFASSOCIATION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF VA ANTIQUITIES5× · 2020–2024 · $5.6M · revenue +139% · 30% of their budget
- LCLANCASTER COUNTY CONSERVANCY2× · 2019–2021 · $1.6M · revenue +12%
Funded once
- HVHOOPA VALLEY INDIAN TRIBEone grant, 2023 · $8.2M
- CSCOLORADO STATE UNIVERSITYone grant, 2020 · $6.4M
- CECOLORADO ENERGY OFFICEone grant, 2023 · $3.8M
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The Northern Virginia Conservation Trust saves nearby nature by encouraging and assisting governments and private landowners to preserve and care for natural areas, trails, streams, parks, and historic and cultural resources for the…
Triangle land conservancy (tlc) strives to create a healthier and more vibrant triangle region by safeguarding clean water, protecting natural habitats, supporting local farms, and connecting people with nature through land protection and…
Protect and conserve land, natural areas, rural landscapes, family farms and historic places within north carolina's heartland
As a nationally accredited land trust, we conserve and manage land for public benefit in North Carolinas Southern Piedmont. We have conserved 235 properties, totaling 17,786 acres of land. We also facilitate the creation of a 1600 mile…
The mission of the Davidson Lands Conservancy is to protect local lands and natural resources, connect lives to nature, and promote a conservation ethic. The Conservancy advances its work through four conservation programs or pillars: land…
Blue ridge rc&d works with partners to conserve natural resources, foster environmental stewardship, and support sustainable community development in northwest north carolina.
Tar river land conservancy preserves the natural and cultural resources of the tar river basin and surrounding areas by working in partnership with private landowners, public agencies and others to protect rural land, riparian corridors…
The land trust leads regional and community collaborations that plan, preserve and provide stewardship for green space in north alabama. our mission is to preserve and protect north alabama's scenic, historic, and ecological resources…
We advocates to protect the natural environment of South Carolinas coast for the benefit of all. We envision a South Carolina coast where wildlife thrives, air and water are clean, and natural
Cultivating prosperity for farms, business and communities through innovative environmental solutions.
To protect land and water forever, nurture relationships between people and place, and connect conservation to community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Leading Harvest and the most unlike its peers is Ndponics. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 22 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
398 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 398 of the 711 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds BRISTOL BAY HERITAGE LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds LONGWOOD GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF VA ANTIQUITIES ↗
- Who funds CONGAREE LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Mainspring Conservation Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER COUNTY CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF NORTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds GREAT RIVERS LAND PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds EAGLE VALLEY LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds NATURAL AREAS LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds LAND TRUST FOR LOUISIANA ↗
- Who funds LAKE ERIE ISLANDS CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds DOUGLAS LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds APPALACHIA OHIO ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BOARD OF TRUSTEES ↗
- Who funds PRAIRIE HILLS RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Food Bank of Central & Eastern Nc Inc · Z Smith Reynolds Foundation Inc · The Cannon Foundation Inc · North Carolina Community Foundation · The Golden Leaf Inc · Dogwood Health Trust · Blueprint North Carolina · Nc Counts Coalition · Land Trust Alliance Inc · Wnc Bridge Foundation · The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina Inc · The Nature Conservancy
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization The Conservation Fund a Nonprofit Corporation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Greater Baybrook Alliance Inc — 60% of income from government
- Vermont Land Trust Inc — 42% of income from government
- Chesapeake Conservancy Inc — 27% of income from government
- Tall Timbers Research Inc — 10% of income from government
- Tampa Metropolitan Area Young Men's Christian Association Inc — 4% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.